


I couldn't heal

by Shae_la_Hyene



Series: Hurt one-shots because I cannot write anything else [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I'm a slut for hurt, M/M, a tiny bit of comfort, but not nearly enough - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:06:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shae_la_Hyene/pseuds/Shae_la_Hyene
Summary: An alternate ending to crazyparakiss' Heal me slow, Love me fast.Could probably be read on its own.Summary of Heal me slow, Love me fast :Draco and Harry had hooked up one night, and Draco ended up pregnant. Even as it was not ideal, Draco asked Harry to marry him and stay with him for a little time, for Malfoys don't have children out of wedlock.But Harry hadn't wanted a child. He hadn't wanted to marry, and he was shit at relationship, and he was shit at feelings. So as Draco fell for him, he couldn't handle it and slept with someone else, ending their relationship in the worse way possible. Draco, hurt and angry, cut him off his life, and prevented him from being there for their daughter's birth.Summary :After his daughter's birth, Draco decided to give Harry a chance to see her, and maybe a chance to be part of her life. But when he arrived, it was too late. Harry committed suicide, and now Draco is left with regrets and a baby who would never know her father.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Hurt one-shots because I cannot write anything else [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948687
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	I couldn't heal

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heal Me Slow (Love Me Fast)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687355) by [crazyparakiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyparakiss/pseuds/crazyparakiss). 



Draco couldn’t keep his eyes off of his daughter.  
He knew he should hate her eyes, her other father’s eyes. But he didn’t. Even as they would remind him every day of the man who never loved any of them and left them alone.  
She was too perfect, and he loved her too much, to hate any part of her.  
After all, it was also a part of someone he had loved. Despite himself and despite a lot of efforts on Harry’s part too.  
He smiled when Meissa started moving, her eyes coming open again, soft noises coming out of her mouth as she came awake.  
He would do it that day. That was what he had decided a while ago, and he would do it.  
He promised himself he’d let Harry see their daughter at least once, and if it didn’t go well, it would be the last one, and he would have no regret.  
If he said that enough, he would probably manage to convince himself.  
There was a lot of regrets in his relationship with Harry, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face them.  
Why he didn’t give up on it, the moment Harry screamed at him that he didn’t want that baby, and to get rid of it.  
Why he begged him to marry him anyway.  
Why they kept on pretending.  
Maybe if they started differently, it could have worked, who knows ?  
He regretted a lot of what they had done to each other during school years.  
He regretted not asking Harry to be faithful, not letting this big loophole in their ‘contract’. Regretted letting him go to do just that, fuck that tart.  
He regretted not talking to him more, telling him what he felt, what he wanted, what he asked for, rather than letting things unsaid to build hopes that went to crash anyway.  
It should have had been simple.  
It was a mistake to have sex that first time, and they both agreed on that.  
It shouldn’t have gone further, Draco shouldn’t have allowed himself to fall for the asshole.  
They shouldn’t have played this ridiculous domestic play that was built upon lies and pretenses.  
Harry never wanted him, and he never wanted a baby, he had been clear about that since the beginning.  
Draco only fooled himself by believing it could change.  
That Harry fucking Potter could change his whole life, go against what he always wanted, for him. For Draco, his enemy, someone who would have never deserved to be happy with someone, let alone the fucking Savior.  
In his arms was the only good thing he could ever get out of this.  
He had it, now, so he couldn’t take the risk of losing her to a fucked up relationship.  
But he had promised himself to close that final door.  
Potter didn’t deserve it, maybe, but Draco still wanted to give him the chance to meet his baby.  
Their baby.  
Meissa.  
She started crying and Draco shushed her lowly, bouncing her slightly up and down until she calmed.  
He loved her so much already. He knew he’d probably give a different speech when he wouldn’t have slept for three weeks because she was crying, as Potter said, but for now he couldn’t help but love her with everything he had.  
When she has stopped crying, Draco took a deep breath, and wrapped his coat around them both, protecting her from the fire and ashes, and entered the floo.  
Time to visit the self destructive prick he married.

He noticed the smell first. Like burnt metal, something he didn’t recognize.  
Then he saw him.  
He registered the pang of hurt in his chest first, then the reality fell on him.  
Harry was dead.  
He was sprawled over the sofa, right in front of Draco. A muggle gun in his hand, and a hole on his temple. And there were bottles of alcohol spread everywhere around him.  
Draco didn’t know exactly when, but he had started crying, and now he was sobbing, and that upset Meissa, who squirmed and cried in his arms.  
Tearing his eyes away from the sight of his dead husband, Draco held her tighter, trying to shush her between the sobs.  
Her father was dead. She would never know him.  
And he would never know how much Draco had loved him.  
All the other regrets paled in front of that one.  
But there was no use for regrets anymore. Swallowing back his tears, Draco did what he had to do. Grabbing a pinch of floo powder, he called for the aurors department, all the while making sure he kept his child’s face away from the sight of her dead father.  
When the aurors arrived, only a few seconds after that, it became evident that Draco was suddenly the first and main suspect in the cold blood murder of the Savior of the Wizarding World. Of course that didn’t show a lot of intelligence from them, but Draco was not in a situation where he could very well call them out on that.  
“If I were to kill my newborn’s father, do you really think I’d do it the muggle way ?” Draco let out, finally, frustrated from yet another serie of questions.  
“And why would I call you, tell me ?”  
The auror facing him frowned, as if what he said just made Draco look more suspicious.  
Draco fought the need to roll his eyes.  
Meissa was fidgeting in his arms, not completely crying, but still making it clear she was uncomfortable and wanted to get away from there. Draco wished they could.  
Of course years of pureblood tradition ingrained in him made that he didn’t show any emotion on his face, even as all he wanted was to ugly cry for days, because the man he loved was dead. But of course, aurors didn’t like carefully crafted composition. They thought he didn’t care, didn’t care enough to kill Harry.  
“You were about to divorce, yes ?”  
Draco’s throat tightened. He didn’t wanted to think about that.  
“Yes,” he replied, calmly.  
“Well…” the auror slurred. “It’s very convenient for you. As you were still married, you inherit. Divorced, you wouldn’t have had gotten anything.”  
Draco felt like he was going to explode.  
“Are you seriously insinuating I would kill my husband, the father of my child, for money ? I already have more than enough, I didn’t need his money. I needed him to stay alive and be there for his daughter. And this stupid jerk couldn’t even do that !”  
The auror took a step back.  
“There, there,” he said in a fake calming tone. “I’m going to need you to calm down or we’ll have to take that conversation in a more secured place.”  
The message was clear. If you start to ‘overreact’, you’ll end up in a cell.  
And all of it was Harry’s fault.  
Not only did he escaped having to be there for them, he was also enough of an asshole to put them in that situation. He wouldn’t let them take him to Azkaban, he wouldn’t let them make his daughter an orphan. So he shut up his mouth, and kept it inside, as his education taught him to do so well.  
This was just unfair.  
And of course, it was then that the floo let in Weasley and Granger.  
He wasn’t ready for that confrontation, not yet. Not with his daughter crying in his arms. Weasley would probably jump on him, blame everything on him.  
It was not like he ever had a good relationship with either of them.  
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself, holding Meissa closer to himself, burying her face in his neck.  
He closed his eyes as Weasley started shouting, loud ‘no’s of denial. Draco wanted to run away from there, he didn’t want to hear them. But he couldn’t, so he just held Meissa tighter. Granger was sobbing, he could hear that too.  
The auror that was interrogating him had left when he opened his eyes again, dealing with the new arrivals. The ones that were on the good side of the war, they were more important than him. He wished he could go home, even as he knew it was foolish.  
After a few minutes, more shouts and shushed conversations, Granger came slowly to him. He moved the baby to the other side, almost instinctively shielding her with his body. But Granger didn’t seem to want to hurt them, or even shout.  
She just looked tired and sad. It made Draco’s chest tightened.  
She had just lost her best friend.  
She sat next to him at the kitchen table, and sighed. Finally, she turned to him.  
“They said it was you who… discovered him,” she said softly. “Are you alright ?”  
Draco couldn’t hide his surprise.  
“You… you don’t think I killed him ?” he asked warily.  
She huffed the ghost of a laugh, and shook her head.  
“Whether Harry liked it or not, he was my best friend, and I knew him. I knew this could happen. He has been… very self destructive since the war ended, and it had only gone worse with time. And there was nothing any of us could have done, in the end.”  
Draco dragged his eyes elsewhere. He wasn’t ready for that particular truth…  
The silence stretched between them, both aware that Draco was avoiding her question.  
“Is it a boy or a girl ?” asked Granger, softer even.  
That shook Draco out of his haze. He pulled his baby away from his chest enough to look at her face.  
“A girl,” he said with a smile. “Her name is Meissa.”  
Granger smiled as Meissa’s eyes came slowly open to welcome the new face. Her eyes seemed dragged to the baby’s.  
“She’s beautiful,” she said in a breath. “She… she has his eyes.”  
Tears started swelling in Granger’s eyes, and Draco had to fight his own.  
“Yes,” he said. “At least the hair is mine, she won’t have to deal with whatever it was that he called hair.”  
Granger laughed at that, and he joined her, for the little time it lasted.  
“Can I hold her ?” she asked when they fell silent again.  
Draco couldn’t help the protective pull that made him hold his daughter closer. Granger rolled her eyes.  
“I’m not going to take your baby from you, Malfoy !” she said. “I just want to hold her a little moment.”  
Reluctantly, he gave her Meissa, and she held her close to herself, a mix of sadness and joy on her face.  
“How are you, Malfoy ?” Granger asked again.  
Draco sighed.  
“I just discovered my husband’s body after his suicide, how do you think I am ?” he said defiantly. “They think I killed him for the money, those dumbasses.”  
Then, more softly.  
“I’m tired. I’m still recovering from the birth. I’ve been there for hours and I couldn’t even feed my baby or get her in her crib and I just want to go home.”  
Granger looked over her shoulder.  
“Yeah, apparently they don’t plan to let you go any time soon, that bunch of assholes.”  
Draco smiled, weakly.  
“Can you… call my mother, please ? So she can come take care of the baby, I want her out of this shithole, in a safer place.”  
Granger winced.  
“I think it would be better if Narcissa kept away from all this at least for a little while,” she said quietly. She watched over her shoulder again. “It’s not a very good season for a Witch Hunt.”  
Draco frowned, but then it clicked.  
Of course, putting his mother in danger was the least he wanted. He sighed.  
“Andromeda, then ?” he asked. “But I wanted to be able to tell Teddy myself, and I don’t want him to know like that, but they just won’t let me leave.”  
His voice was becoming high pitched under the stress and panic, and Granger placed a hand on his arm.  
“Malfoy, it’s okay,” she said quickly.  
Meissa started crying again, not liking the distress in her father’s voice. Draco reached to take her back and rocked her gently.  
When he manage to calm his breathing, he looked straight into Granger’s eyes.  
“You’re a mother, right ?”  
Granger nodded.  
“Take her. Away from here. Take her at my place, there are all her stuff, and I’ll come as soon as I can to take her back, but take her away from here, please.”  
Granger’s face relaxed, and she nodded, once.  
“But,” Draco said before she could take the baby. “If you take her away from me, and prevent me from seeing her after they released me, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you. You understand ?”  
Once again, she nodded firmly. Then she reached and Draco placed his baby in her arms, against his best instincts. He knew he couldn’t keep his newborn baby in a flat full of aurors, where her father’s body was still on the fucking sofa.  
“I think we’ll leave soon. Ron, he’s not handling it well. He needs to scream a bit before he can admit that Harry’s gone. I think he’s not forgiving himself that the last time they saw each other, they fought.”  
Draco nodded.  
“I regret that I didn’t tell him I loved him,” he admitted in a whisper.  
He didn’t mean to tell her, the words escaped him.  
Granger placed her hand on his, pulling his gaze to hers.  
“I think he knew,” she said softly.  
He smiled at it, and squeezed her hand.  
Eventually, they got up, and went back to the sitting room, and to Weasley’s shouting and crying.  
When he saw him, Weasley run to him and it took two aurors to stop him from punching Draco.  
“It’s your fault,” he screamed. “He would still be alive if it wasn’t for you, you little git !”  
Draco knew it wasn’t personal, Weasley had been screaming at everyone, even his wife, but it still hurt. Because he was right.  
He didn’t say anything, just watched as they took his baby away through the floo, knowing that maybe it was the last time he saw his daughter. 

It was only hours later that he stumbled out of his own fireplace, falling exhausted on his sofa. The aurors had finally let him go with the strong advice of staying home in case of further questions for him. He was so exhausted he could have fallen asleep right there and then, but he didn’t know where his child was and he had to find her.  
He got back up with difficulty, and walked back to floo to Andromeda’s.  
Everyone was there.  
Andromeda herself, Teddy, and Weasley and Granger, Meissa held into Andromeda’s sure arms, and Draco relaxed a little. She was safe.  
Andromeda raised her head as he came in, relief flooding on her face.  
“Draco, sweetie, you’re here. We have called Narcissa, but she is still at home, we thought it would be safer this way.”  
Draco nodded. As much as he would have loved to have his mother’s support, he’d rather see her at home than in a cell for not reason than prejudices. He walked to his aunt and took his daughter back in his own arms. He smiled when she looked at him and move her little arms toward him, taking a strand of his hair in her little fist.  
He kissed her hand softly and went to sit on the sofa facing the one with Weasley. He wanted to put as much distance as possible between them.  
With his baby finally back in his own arms, Draco allowed his body to relax into the sofa, letting the exhaustion fall over him all at once.  
He felt truly alone, even as he was with family and… others. This was it. There was no more chance to get Harry back, he would raise their baby all on his own.  
A few minutes later, Teddy got up to go to the loo, and Granger went to sit next to Draco.  
“You said you wanted to tell him yourself, so we waited, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to, alright ? You have the choice, but we’ll do it if you don’t want to.”  
Draco shook his head.  
“No,” he said. “I’ll do it.”  
Kissing his daughter’s forehead, he broke apart from her again, placing her in Granger’s arms.  
Teddy was getting out of the bathroom when Draco caught up with him.  
“Hey, Teddy,” he said softly. “Can we go to your room, I want to tell you something.”  
Teddy frowned, but nodded, guiding them both, and sitting on the edge of his bed. Draco went to sit next to him.  
“Is that about Harry ? Is he okay ?” Teddy asked.  
Draco shook his head slowly.  
“No, he is not. I’m sorry, Teddy, Harry is gone.”  
“Gone ? Where ? When will he come back ?” Teddy asked in a row, his frown deepening.  
“He’s not coming back, he is dead.”  
Teddy’s face fell and Draco’s heart shattered at that.  
“I’m really sorry, Teddy,” he said softly.  
“He can’t be dead. He was fine, he can’t be.”  
“Teddy…”  
“No he can’t be,” Teddy screamed, hoping off the bed. “He was supposed to be the one that stayed alive, to take care of me !”  
Jumping on his feet, Draco caught Teddy in his pacing, placing his hands on the teenager’s shoulders.  
“I am here, you are not alone. I am going to be there for you, and I’m going to stay, I promise, you hear me ?”  
Tears were running on Teddy’s face.  
“He can’t be dead,” he whispered again.  
Draco pulled him into a fierce hug, needing it as much as Teddy. 

An hour or so after that, Draco finally left Teddy in his room, asleep from running out of tears.  
Feeling more exhausted than ever, he came back to the sitting room and dropped in his previous place, closing his eyes for a moment.  
“He’s asleep,” he said softly. “There is not much more to do now.”  
Andromeda was coming back from the kitchen, and nodded solemnly.  
Silence installed itself in the room, a soothing balm to Draco’s soul. He let his head fall on the backrest, looking at the ceiling without seeing it.  
“It was not your fault, Draco,” Granger said softly.  
Weasley groaned his disapproval next to her, but she shushed him.  
“But it is,” said Draco against himself. “I… pushed him away. I cut him off, preventing him from coming home, and I didn’t allow him to come see his daughter’s birth. It was my fault.”  
Granger shook her head softly.  
“No it was not. Harry was… never the same after the war. He was terrified of getting attached to someone and see them die again. That’s why he acted like that. He wanted to push everyone away, including us but we didn’t let him,” she added, looking at Weasley.  
“He had started to be self-destructive far before… being with you. Then he started to be with you, and he freaked out.”  
“And so he went out and fucked that girl so I would call it off,” Draco said bitterly.  
Granger sighed.  
“I’m not even sure he thought about it. It was instinctual. I think he loved you, and he didn’t allow himself that, because he was terrified of losing you and being hurt again. This is not your fault.”  
Draco started to cry, he couldn’t help it, and when the tears started to fall, he couldn’t stop them anymore.  
“If I arrived earlier I could have stopped him. But I didn’t because I was a coward, and now he will never see our baby, and she will grow without her father, and this is all because I pushed him away and I could never forgive myself that. He thought I hated him, because I never told him I didn’t. I never told him I loved him, and now it’s too late and he will never know and I can’t… I can’t,” he said between sobs.  
Granger jumped to her feet and crossed the room to sit by his side, pulling him into a tight hug. He sobbed louder, he felt pathetic, as she rocked them softly.  
“I loved him,” he said against her neck. “He was an prick but I loved him, and now he’s gone.”  
She rubbed his arm softly.  
“I know, Draco. I loved him too. And he knew that, but he just couldn’t do it. It’s not your fault. We were all fucked up, in our own way. He just couldn’t do it anymore. It’s not your fault.”  
“He would have loved her, you know,” Weasley spoke for the first time. “He had wanted kids for long enough to be genuine. Then he convinced himself he couldn’t do it, but I’m sure he would have loved his daughter the moment he’d have seen her. I know I do,” he added with a smile.  
“And you’re not alone in this, Draco,” said Andromeda softly. “There is your mother, and me, and Teddy, and Hermione and Ron too.”  
“He was our family,” said Granger. “So she is too, and you too, you are our family. You’re not alone, she will be loved even if she never knows him.”  
Nobody added anything after that. There was no point, Draco had hit the limit of what he could believe in.  
After a long moment, Andromeda spoke softly.  
“She’s tired, I gave her formula milk, I know you don’t like it, but I didn’t wanted you to have to feed her for today. I’ll take her to her crib, now, you’re okay with that ?”  
Draco nodded, too exhausted to think of going home with her. Even with the auror’s threat.  
“We’ll leave,” said Granger softly. “You need rest, and so do we. But there will be something at the Burrow, tomorrow, we’ll talk about the rest there. Will you come ?”  
Draco shrugged.  
“I don’t know. I’ll… think about it,” he said. That was the best he could offer.  
“And don’t worry about those bloody aurors,” said Weasley. “We’ll stand by you, they have no right to harass you like that.”  
Draco nodded sharply. He felt grateful but wouldn’t admit it under torture.  
After they left, Andromeda took him to an empty room, facing Teddy's, where his daughter was asleep in her crib, and indicated the bed next to her.  
“Sleep, sweetie, you need rest,” she said firmly.  
Draco wouldn’t have protested anyway.  
As he laid down on the bed, he gripped his stomach, just below his heart. He felt like something was missing there, and only pain replaced it.  
Harry was gone.  
The man he loved was dead, and now he was alone.  
He forced himself to sleep, taking comfort in the sight of his sleeping baby.  
There was still so much to do, tomorrow.  
And now he had a life to build, for himself and his daughter, all on his own.  
He couldn’t be anything less than perfect. He owed it, even if he wasn’t sure to whom.  
He just hoped Harry was better where he was, because Draco certainly wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I had hoped, because I'm a masochist, that the fic ended in more hurt, but the author decided for a happy ending, and the slut for hurt that I am wasn't completely satisfied. So. More hurt. Never get enough.
> 
> I'm trying to post a maximum of content during that fucked up situation, consider it war effort.


End file.
